Julia Muggenburg, is pleased to announce, Coco Crampton’s, first solo show at Belmacz gallery.

A sense of precision criss-crosses Crampton's installations creating a sense of deliberate display. There are angles, planes or facets on metal, cut hardwood, hammered sheeting and smooth paint, faux finishes, woven fabrics and glazed ceramics, accentuated textures which vie for the viewer’s attention.

These contrasts are commanding as they confront the viewer. Stately sculptures come out of simplified jigsaw. The palette of colours gentle, at times feminine, is off set with flat, saturated inks against dull tonalities reminiscent of waiting rooms of the 21st century.

Confident, the works coexist and rival each other to create a visually soothing, pared down prism of the artist’s repertoire, not unlike a meadow, a bower- private yet accessible. At times installed there to stimulate the spectator. Objects are at play, they take over the stage.

Feeling of utility in the works’ shapes indicated by the strictness of form, is misleading. A negation by the carefully rendered faux finishes permeates the works. Black and white starkness suggests mixed emotional aggregates.

Taken from the historical language of embellishment within the domestic sphere and the everyday useful object, these works become more than they proclaimed to be at first. Under the guise of a refined, somehow, exotic camouflage of saturated paints, knitted patterns out of cinquecento, deliberate marks and splattering, strings and fringing, the artist’s effigies turn into suggestions of something else entirely. They are hieroglyphs and references to ascetic representation, no details seemingly superfluous, but absolutely necessary.

Objects take centre stage and turn important. From the modest thrown clay pot to the braided matting, is Crampton 's endeavour where modesty and pomp collide.

Quiet confidence emanates, varied in size and complexity alike s bowerbirds mating display.

The title 'Bowers: from form to public’, relates to the double meaning of ‘Bower’; both as a garden dwelling, folly or leafy recess and as a feminine boudoir or private chamber. Crampton's Bowers are a series of display structures composed of wood, metal, ceramic and other materials. Akin to nest structures built by male Bowerbirds, embellished elaborately in an attempt to attract a mate; Crampton's decorative structures, or hanging systems, vary in scale, orientation and complexity. Together they congregate in Belmacz Gallery, with its large shop window façade, and respond to the unique context and dual functionality of the space; both as a jewellery shop and an art gallery.

Together they congregate in Belmacz Gallery, with its large shop window facade, and respond to the unique context and dual functionality of the space; both as a jewellery shop and art gallery.

Coco Crampton (b. 1983) lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include Handles on Romance & Other Girls Also Common Tongue, The Minories Galleries, Colchester (2015), Bonne Bouche, The Cut, Halesworth (2010) and Swing, Outpost Gallery, Norwich (2007). Group exhibitions include RA Summer Exhibition 2016, Royal Academy of Arts, London, All Over (five person show), Studio_Leigh, London, Graduation (recent graduates of the Royal Academy Schools), Art First, London, Gardeners & Astronomers (with Nicole Vinokur), Caustic Coastal, Manchester (2016); Kingly Things (with Agata Madejska), Chandelier Projects, London (2015); Protected Space (with Jonathan Baldock), Belmacz Gallery, London Royal Academy Schools Show, London, At Home Salon, Marcelle Joseph Projects, Ascot, Peachy, Salt+Powell, York, Circus TM, Belmacz Gallery, London (2014); Premium Interim Projects, Royal Academy Schools, London (2013); A Thing is a Thing is a Thing, The Minories Gallery, Colchester (2012); Slipped, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (2011).

Crampton graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2014 and previously studied at Norwich School of Art and Design, she was awarded the Patricia Turner Sculpture Award, (2014) and Hiscox Scholarship Award (2013).